Hey Jan, glad it made you think. As you've found out it's not easy to rank #1 on Google especially when so few people will link to your product reviews. You need to tackle a specific niche with a focused target audience as a whole and build a community of like minded people around your site in order to make any significant income online sustainably and for the long term.

Since its founding, the company has attracted criticism and controversy from multiple sources over its actions. These include: supplying law enforcement with facial recognition surveillance tools;[182] forming cloud computing partnerships with the CIA;[183] luring customers away from the site's brick and mortar competitors;[184] placing a low priority on warehouse conditions for workers; participating in anti-unionization efforts; remotely deleting content purchased by Amazon Kindle users; taking public subsidies; claiming that its 1-Click technology can be patented; engaging in anti-competitive actions and price discrimination;[185] and reclassifying LGBT books as adult content.[186][187] Criticism has also concerned various decisions over whether to censor or publish content such as the WikiLeaks website, works containing libel and material facilitating dogfight, cockfight, or pedophile activities. In December 2011, Amazon faced a backlash from small businesses for running a one-day deal to promote its new Price Check app. Shoppers who used the app to check prices in a brick-and-mortar store were offered a 5% discount to purchase the same item from Amazon.[188] Companies like Groupon, eBay and Taap.it countered Amazon's promotion by offering $10 off from their products.[189][190] The company has also faced accusations of putting undue pressure on suppliers to maintain and extend its profitability. One effort to squeeze the most vulnerable book publishers was known within the company as the Gazelle Project, after Bezos suggested, according to Brad Stone, "that Amazon should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle."[134] In July 2014, the Federal Trade Commission launched a lawsuit against the company alleging it was promoting in-app purchases to children, which were being transacted without parental consent.[191]
Shelfari was a social cataloging website for books. Shelfari users built virtual bookshelves of the titles which they owned or had read and they could rate, review, tag and discuss their books. Users could also create groups that other members could join, create discussions and talk about books, or other topics. Recommendations could be sent to friends on the site for what books to read. Amazon bought the company in August 2008.[112] Shelfari continued to function as an independent book social network within the Amazon until January 2016, when Amazon announced that it would be merging Shelfari with Goodreads and closing down Shelfari.[114][115]
If you have created DVD’s, CD’s, MP3’s, books, etc., and they are all original, Amazon is a great place to sell. You can sell downloads directly from the Amazon website through CreateSpace. Royalties are paid whenever a product is sold on the platform. Your products will receive free universal product codes, so you can sell them directly on Amazon. Just like with third-party selling, your products will be eligible for two-day shipping.
Over the summer, a group of East African Amazon workers in the Minneapolis area began negotiating with Amazon to make compromises around Ramadan holiday hours, better responding to worker complaints, and building a dedicated prayer space in the Shakopee fulfillment center. Unsatisfied with the pace of progress toward improving working conditions, the group rallied a few hundred people, including local teamster chapters, to the Shakopee facility parking lot Friday afternoon to demand that Amazon reduce productivity rates to safe levels, respect the cultural differences of Muslim East Africans, and invest in a community fund to aid in affordable housing for workers.

In November 2018, Amazon announced it would open its highly sought-after new headquarters (HQ2) in Crystal City, Virginia[56] and New York City.[57][58] Few of the public subsidies being offered to Amazon have been disclosed. Maryland has offered an incentive package worth an estimated $8.5 billion. The Newark, New Jersey subsidies are estimated at $7 billion.[59][60] Despite mixed reception, HQ2 is expected to expand the job ecosystem on Long Island.[61]

For most investors, watching a stock they own increase in value by more than 30% in one year would be reason to celebrate. However, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) isn’t just any company, and investors haven’t been used to a prolonged decline in the stock. Since late September, Amazon’s shares have struggled to get back to their old highs. Whether this is a short-term issue, or a longer-term consolidation remains to be seen. It’s exciting when Amazon gets into new markets, but investors should be equally happy that the company is addressing its profit margins in a meaningful way. Fulfillment costs consumed just under 15% of revenue last quarter, and Amazon is making moves to cut this expense. The first step was to order thousands of delivery vans. The most recent step is developing its own fleet of airplanes.
According to an August 8, 2018 story in Bloomberg Businessweek, Amazon has about a 5 percent share of U.S. retail spending (excluding cars and car parts and visits to restaurants and bars), and a 43.5 share of American online spending in 2018. The forecast is for Amazon to own 49 percent of the total American online spending in 2018, with two-thirds of Amazon's revenue coming from the U.S.[53]
Feedvisor: Very expensive algorithmic repricer that optimizes your margin by trying to win the Buy Box most of the time and takes into account other factors that affect who wins the Buy Box aside from price. Unlike any other repricer, it will raise your price (again, within limits) if you can still win the Buy Box despite the higher price. It also has a bunch of other great reporting and tools.

The company was founded as a result of what Jeff Bezos called his "regret minimization framework", which described his efforts to fend off any regrets for not participating sooner in the Internet business boom during that time.[21] In 1994, Bezos left his employment as vice-president of D. E. Shaw & Co., a Wall Street firm, and moved to Seattle, Washington, where he began to work on a business plan[22] for what would become Amazon.com.